Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf: The Novel Cure for 4am terrors

Literary prescriptions for modern ailments

Our Souls at Night

Ailment: 4am terrors

Cure: Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf

For the lucky ones, four o'clock in the morning is a time of untroubled sleep. But for many, the backdrop of darkness and silence makes this an ideal time for our deepest fears to surface. Whether it's a personal grief that torments us, the fear of our own eventual demise, or our perceived failures and regrets, being left alone with our thoughts at night can be soul-destroying stuff. We prescribe the company of a book in which the main characters not only share and understand this ailment but send it packing with an ingenious – if audacious – solution.

Set, as with all the late Haruf's novels, in the fictional town of Holt, Colorado, the story begins when 70-year-old widow Addie Moore pays a call on an acquaintance – a widower named Louis, a block away. Addie gets straight to the point. “I wonder if you would come and sleep in the night with me,” she says. She's not talking about sex. She's talking about “getting through the night” – because, she says, the nights are the worst. Doesn't he agree?

Admirably, Louis decides to take her up on her proposal, and a tender friendship develops. Under cover of darkness and bedsheets, Addie and Louis gradually open up to one another, revealing details of their lives – the death of a daughter, an adulterous affair. And when Addie's six-year-old grandson comes to stay while his parents tend to their unravelling marriage, Louis becomes a stand-in grandad, helping to plug the sadness in the little boy's life now that he's so much happier himself.

You may not be moved to find yourself a bedmate; but perhaps you will feel inspired to think more proactively about ways to thwart your own night-time terrors. Meanwhile, Haruf's quiet and transcendent novel, embracing as it does the discomfort and possibilities inherent in the wee hours, will be company and distraction in itself. µ

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